PET System Including Multiplexed or Muxed Readout Boards

Abstract

Described herein is a reduced PET design that uses shared and multiplexed Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) resources in which changes to the electronic cabinet are made to allow multiplexing. Specifically, individual cables from regions of detector blocks that geometrically cannot be in coincidence with each other are muxed together at the ADC chip.

1 . A positron emission tomography imaging system comprising:
 a plurality of slow output cables, each slow output cable having a detector end and at least a first chip end;   a plurality of detector blocks, each respective corner of each one of the plurality of the detector blocks being connected to the detector end of a respective one of the plurality of slow output cables;   at least a first respective one detector block and a second respective one detector block being multiplexed together by connecting the first chip end of the slow output cable connected to the first respective one detector block and the first chip end of the slow output cable connected to the second respective one detector block to one analog-to-digital converter chip.   
     
     
         2 . The positron emission tomography imaging system according to  claim 1  wherein the first respective one detector block and the second respective one detector block are geometrically positioned with the positron emission tomography imaging system such that the first respective one detector block and the second respective one detector block cannot be in coincidence. 
     
     
         3 . The positron emission tomography imaging system according to  claim 1  further comprising a plurality of fast output cables, each respective one fast output cable connected at a detector end to a respective one detector block and at a first chip end to a timing chip. 
     
     
         4 . The positron emission tomography imaging system according to  claim 3  wherein each fast output cable has a second chip end connected to a block selection chip. 
     
     
         5 . The positron emission tomography imaging system according to  claim 1  wherein each slow output cable has a second chip end for connecting each corner of a given detector block to one analog-to-digital converter chip, one timing chip or one block selection chip. 
     
     
         6 . The positron emission tomography imaging system according to  claim 4  wherein each slow output cable has a third chip end for connecting each corner of a given detector block to a timing chip.